HomeMy WebLinkAbout21 PBZ & Downtown What We HeardFinding a Spot: PBZ – 1/28 and Downtown 2/3 – “What we heard”
Community Values & Guiding Principles
- General alignment with values and guiding principles
- High value expressed for active transportation, walkability
o “A sense that there is a disconnect between the values and the City's commitment to
them in terms of actual projects planning and/or budgeting to deliver (e.g., things like
transit, bikes, bike lanes and safe pedestrian connections).”
o How can we provide better access to downtown by bike, ped, transit? (in addition to
driving and parking)
- Fiscal responsibility must be shared between City, developers, residents, visitors, businesses
o “Agree that private sector is responsible [for providing parking] but is it a shared
principle within development community?”
o Asking how we maximize the current garage before we look at building a new one? and
how do we utilize more efficiently - works for everybody.
- Equity values should be focused on service employees, renters who live with housemates
o “Many employees need to drive downtown because they can’t afford to live within
walking or biking distance.”
- Support for data-driven decisions and data and decision making transparency
o “Need data to counter perceptions and have a transparent discussion. Make sure data is
sampled during peak times, not when parking is underutilized.”
o “Importance of data driven decisions needs to be emphasized and decisions will be
difficult until that is achieved. Data needs to be transparent.”
What’s working:
- Neighborhoods are relatively quiet despite proximity to downtown. Walkable, safe
neighborhoods
- Parking is generally available downtown depending on time of day – “parking problem” is highly
localized, might have to walk a couple blocks to your destination
- Thriving local businesses downtown
What’s not working
- Employees taking up parking and eliminating access to parking to downtown businesses
- Data availability and transparency
- Lack of trust in staff, Parking Commission, developers not providing enough parking to mitigate
impact on adjacent neighborhoods
- Perceived underutilization of existing parking supply (public garage and private lots)
- Inadequate multimodal transportation facilities (bike infrastructure and transit service)
What are we not asking? Other themes noted
- “If PBDs time schedule is from 8AM to 5PM, how will parking for later events such as Farmer's
Market, Music on Main, Sweet Pea, be managed?”
- A worry that the City will use the PBZ "as an out for developers" to allow them to not build
parking, using neighborhoods instead.
- How are we defining “adequate” parking for different user groups? Resident, visitor, customer
- “How many parking spots should developers have to supply to protect character of the
neighborhood?”
- “Because parking is free, people don’t want to take bus (bus is free)”
- Support was expressed in both PBZ session and Downtown session for paid parking
o “Pay for parking would be greatly appreciated if it was easy to pay off-front”
o “Not opposed to paid parking (worth looking at).
o “Be willing to charge for parking. Parking works, just need to be willing to walk.”
Maintain accessible parking
o “Paid parking is a good idea - hope parking apps can run smoothly and better facilitate
parking downtown”
- More transparency is needed to address mistrust and “a sense that a solution is already
formed.”
- More communication, education, wayfinding, coordination with DBP, business owners,
employees to get the right parker to the right spot
- “How can city partner/work with hospitality owners to efficiently use city resources? If there is
mismatch for parking assets available and need for parking for guests. Hotel users and office
workers have opposite parking needs.”
- "Downtown Connector" bus loop (Downtown, 7th, Cannery/Fairgrounds/Rouse) could be used
to help off-set employee parking needs.”
- Reducing parking minimums are supported by some and opposed by others, paid parking
supported by some, opposed by others
- “Explore a different standard than one space per dwelling unit in B3 zone to incentivize desired
products - more smaller studio and one bedroom units instead of luxury condominiums for
example. Recognize that codes are not static and should change over time.”
- As a developer, knowing the cost to provide onsite parking - it expensive - cost transferred to
tenant or renter etc; we have leases in the garage, it is underutilized, should double price - UDC
leases welcome
- Concerns about subsiding development downtown by providing garage leases
- Concerns about PBZs being used to increase parking capacity for new development rather than
to protect neighborhood parking from downtown spillover